DOD RE-SIZING

When I think about improving the effectiveness of federal government spending, I first think about the Department of Expense, er, Defense (DOD). DOD expenditures accounted for 21% of total Federal government spending (and 53% of "discretionary" Federal spending) in FY2010. In addition, US defense expenditures represented 43% of total global military spending in 2009; in 2011 US DOD spending will be greater than the combined sum of the next 6 largest nations' defense expenditures (China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France and the UK). In 2011, DOD's total budget is $741.2 billion. [By design, this number isn't completely "transparent", unlike other federal agencies. Wikipedia cites the DOD budget as $663.7B, others state it as high as I've cited above – what's $77.5B among friends.] That's an astonishing amount in both absolute and relative terms.

Who's kidding whom, this astounding sum can surely be cut by at least 10-15% without much real consequence – say in 4 ways: by stopping all vainglorious weapons' development and purchase to conduct future wars against past enemies that no longer exist, e.g., the USSR; by reducing 10-15% of all active-duty and reserve military personnel – including top brass – (across each of the services); by eliminating 10-15% of all active military bases; and by unifying the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force into a single force (just like Canada successfully did years ago). Such re-sizing will undoubtedly produce huge howling by people with much brass and ribbons on their chests. Oh well, if they didn't howl, I'd assume the re-sizing wasn't big enough.

Do I think we should get rid of the DOD? No; a properly-functioning, responsive, non-omnipotent, non-omnipresent DOD is an essential part of our government.

However, I believe that the astronomical size of DOD spending is ultimately not in our nation's interest. Because of its size, the US has effectively (almost necessarily) adopted an all-war all the time foreign policy – how else to justify this huge expenditure. Why, because the DOD is large enough to do it. Like sheep, the public passively consents when the generals and admirals (G&As) say, "OMG, here's another pre-eminent threat we now need to destroy (the latest being Libya's madman president) to preserve our national security; and not to worry, we'll get it done quickly. By the way, since we're now fighting 3 (count 'em) wars, we need more money, not just the $700+ billion we got this year." Of course, that "quickly" will turn out to be just as quick as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The only way to stop this damaging, not-so-pseudo imperialism is to meaningfully cut the DOD's resources – by that I mean cut not only its budget and the number of worldwide bases, but more importantly also reduce the number of men and women (and G&As) in uniform; there are 2,278,895 people (including reserves) in the US armed forces. These cuts will have the benefit that we can't even feasibly contemplate fighting multiple wars at the same time all the time, which is a national policy strategy that endangers our international relations, reputation and political and fiscal future.

The military-industrial complex isn't really so complex. Our top-to-bottom increasingly disconnected all-volunteer professional military (as contrasted to a military mostly comprised of draftee citizens that was the norm until post-Vietnam) sees unending fighting as its only viable and natural function (other than defending its political position and budget) and its justification for existence. Thus, that's what the G&As do with increasing impunity – they advocate for continuous armed conflict. As Jonathan Stevenson in the May issue of Harper's puts it, "The United States has moved toward a quasi-imperial model of security, whereby open-ended military deployments keep the homeland [allegedly] safe by effectively pushing its boarders outward." Stevenson contends that because of its size and influence, the military has in effect co-opted President (and Commander in Chief) Obama's power to exercise civilian control over strategic/military policy. His article is entitled, "Owned by the Army."

Should this re-sizing of DOD resources be undertaken? Absolutely, if for no other reason than to benefit the 99.3% of US citizens who aren't wearing a military uniform. Realistically however, can the DOD budget and seemingly unlimited mission be significantly reduced and narrowed? Regrettably, it's very unlikely, mostly because DOD has emerged over the years since its costly Vietnam fiasco as the core determinant of US international policy, despite what the Secretary of State might say. [The State Dept's FY2010 budget was less than 8% of DODs.] Somehow the costly Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos don't yet count as negatives (for those of us who live in the 50 US states anyway). Very few politicians want to be labeled as an anti-American coward whose interest is in weakening the USofA. Tragic, because the DOD is unjustifiably big, and failing in its principal mission of defending our nation from real foes by continuing to conjure up more-or-less phantom ones (e.g., the Russian "missile gap") they need to confront to justify the military's too large existence.